A withered man, nine-decades-old and held-up in part by a wooden cane, reclines beside a stack of self-published scientific books. The walls of his home are barren, the counters scattered with copious vitamins and supplements. “When people say they don’t want to extend their lives,” he says, “they’re talking without thinking.” This is Robert Ettinger, aka “The Iceman”. Nearing the final chapter of his life, he doesn’t buy into the notion of death – at least, not in the traditional sense – and he doesn’t believe you have to, either. As founder of the Cryonics Institute, Ettinger has devoted a giant portion of his life to cryogenics, the process by which human beings are stripped of their blood, filled with antifreeze, and frozen (by way of liquid nitrogen), where they are then stored in a sustained kind of limbo until more-advanced technology can “awaken” them.

Act One of Robert Ettinger’s existence has drawn to a close. I plan on watching Weekend at Bernie’s in tribute. Associated Press reports:

Robert Ettinger, pioneer of the cryonics movement that advocates freezing the dead in the hope that medical technology will enable them to live again someday, has died. He was 92. His body became the 106th to be stored at the Cryonics Institute, which he founded in 1976.

The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 to prepare a body and store it long-term in a tank of liquid nitrogen at minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit. The first person frozen there was Ettinger’s mother, Rhea Ettinger, who died in 1977. His two wives, Elaine and Mae, also are patients at the Institute. Similar facilities for preserving dead bodies operate in Arizona, California and Russia.

Ettinger also established the Immortalist Society, a research and education group devoted to cryonics and extending the human life span.